by Allan Fish
(Denmark 2005 139m) DVD1/2
Man’s law, a book and movie in eight chapters
p Vibeke Windelov d/w Lars Von Trier ph Anthony Dod Mantle ed Bodil Kjærhauge, Molly Marlene Stensgard art Peter Grant cos Manon Rasmussen
Bryce Dallas Howard (Grace), Willem Dafoe (Father), Danny Glover (Wilhelm), Isaach de Bankolé (Timothy), Lauren Bacall (Mam), Jeremy Davies (Niels), Udo Kier (Mr Kirspe), Jean-Marc Barr (Mr Robinsson), Mona Hammond (Wilma), Chloë Sevigny (Philomena), Nina Sosonya (Rose), Suzette Llewellyn (Flora), John Hurt (narrator),
Manderlay is a film that was eagerly awaited ever since its predecessor Dogville premiered at Cannes in 2003 to the usual Von Trier reception, equal parts vitriol and garlands. He intended it to be the first part in a proposed trilogy on America, in which Manderlay is the second instalment. That it is very nearly the equal of the original speaks volumes not just of Von Trier himself, but in his ability to succeed even when the novelty if its uniquely simplistic style of shooting was no longer fresh. It’s a film that demands several viewings to take in its intricacies.
Upon their departure from the destroyed mountain community of Dogville, Grace and her gangster father return to Colorado to find that his territory has been taken over and, rather than fight it out, they take the diplomatic route of going somewhere else. On their way, they stop by an old southern plantation, where they are amazed when a black woman comes over to their parked car to get help for their master. Grace is then told how the community of Manderlay still lives by the rules of slavery, with an old white mistress known only as Mam, and her more youthful members of the family. Grace is appalled and uses her father’s men to help her teach the slaves about freedom denied to them for the last 68 years.
It would be easy to dismiss Manderlay as merely a lesser companion piece to Dogville, while many have complained, and not without reason, that the calibre of cast is not as high. Sure Sevigny, Bacall, Barr, Kier and Davies are there from the original, but they are given little to do, while Dafoe lacks Caan’s iconic presence as the gangster father. Character motivation is undoubtedly often hard to grasp, but not half so much as in the first film. It must also be said that Howard lacks the acting range of Kidman, but so do most actresses, and she is as good as could be expected and then some, her smile often illuminating the most doleful of sequences. Glover, meanwhile, comes across almost like Bela Lugosi in Island of Lost Souls, a Sayer of the Law who, in this case, is complicit in the travesty of humanity that is ‘man’s law’ to the extremity that he wrote it.
What must be said is that Manderlay is a truly political film, a very thinly veiled allegory and condemnation of the Bush administration and self-righteous invasion of Iraq. His protagonist sticking her nose into matters that doesn’t concern her, forcing them to like a freedom that is alien to them, using violence, or the threat of violence, wherever necessary, and all the time having Daddy’s approval, or otherwise, at the back of her mind. That’s not to say that Von Trier doesn’t sympathise with his heroine, as he undoubtedly does. Yet he obviously sees her and her father, the cure from the first film, as very much part of the disease in the second. Certainly his sexual treatment of Grace is perverse, and it must be said she is equally as much the submissive as she was in Dogville, a strong woman in a man’s world, but one who also seemingly likes being sexually mastered, emphasised in a brutally cold sex scene with a courageously naked Howard where Timothy literally seems to try to break her insides in two rather than soothe, to quote Hurt, “the pulsating explosions in her nether regions.” Her lusts both carnal and violent, as personified in her execution of Wilma and vigorous whipping of Timothy. Daddy’s final approval, and the irony of a case of bad timing, are the final broadsides aimed at a country that both fascinates and repulses Von Trier in equal measure. Certainly Hurt’s final words ring true a long time after the final fadeout, “if anyone refused to see a helping hand, he really only had himself to blame.” Now there’s ambiguity for you.
I believe this movie would probably be recieved a lot better if Von Trier had completed the trilogy, something which he seems increasingly unlikely to do. Then it would be in that nice, tidy comfort zone of being the middle-period of a story about to be finished, rather than a mere sequel. As it stands, it’s still pretty damn good. He mixes his metaphors a wee bit with prolonged Depression-Era slavery standing in for Gulf War II, and at times I frankly find Grace’s shift from Nicole Kidman’s willowy rape-victim/martyr to Bryce Dallas Howard’s coquettish S&M freak more than a little off-putting even for VT’s bizarre strains of misogyny, but whatever. Of all the rather annoying attempts at strained international dissent during the Bush administration, I can appreciate this the most, because at the end of the day it’s still a damn good picture.
But seriously, though. Make the third movie already, damnit.
Meh. The theatrical minimalism of Dogville and Manderlay remain significant barriers to my appreciation of the films. It amplifies the allegorical nature of the films’ stories to the point where they are drained of any dramatic heft. I didn’t dislike the films, but their generally preachy tone and clumsy irony is a bit off-putting.
I’ll take Antichrist over any of Von Trier’s other 2000s in a heartbeat. At least it was lushly cinematic. And, as much as I’ve defended it, it still wouldn’t crack my own Top 100 of the decade.
Dogville is so extreme in its minimalism that I think its potentially anticinema qualities actually become highly cinematic through a weird sort of alchemy. Haven’t seen Manderlay.
Dogville and Antichrist will definitely be very high on the countdown. What about The Five Obstructions? A key von Trier film in many ways, certainly one of the most explicit yet sly demonstrations of his perverse, sadistic sensibilities – I know Allan said there would not be many docs in the countdown, but I’d love to see that one make the cut and I have a hunch it could fit the bill for Mr. Fish…
One of the things I love most about WitD is the love and appreciation von Trier receives. To me, he is the filmmaker of the ’00s, just as Kieslowski was for the ’90s. Can he place 3 films in the top 50? I think 2 are a lock, it just depends on DANCER IN THE DARK…
I hear ya Jamie, and DANCER would certainly be in my own countdown, as it’s my favorite film of 2000. But I know it will not make Allan’s list here.
Dancer in the Dark is an inferior rip off of Potter’s TV masterwork Pennies from Heaven.
Why? Because it’s a dark-themed musical? That’s like writing off “The Kingdom” by calling it a rip-off of “Twin Peaks”.
Mr. Clark is absolutely right.
No, because a rip-off, Mr Clark, is something that’s INFERIOR to the original by some way. A successful attempt at the same thing is a REINTERPRETATION.
I don’t think you can call this a “rip off” or “reinterpretation” of Potter’s work, frankly. “Dancer in the Dark”‘s relationship to “Pennies From Heaven” only really extends as far as portraying musical sequences as part of a character’s fantasies. At any rate, Potter himself recycled the same concept twice for “The Singing Detective” and “Lipstick On Your Collar” (not to mention the dreadful American remakes of “Pennies” and “Detective” penned by Potter himself), so I don’t begrudge Von Trier using it as an influence. And hey, save for the ditty from “Sound of Music”, at least it has an original soundtrack.
The rip off goes deeper than just singing and dancing, if you were paying attention, Clark. Both detail characters with little grasp of reality and living in the fantsy world of songs. Both find themselves hanged wrongfully for murder and sing during their trial. I’ll leave it at that and let you work the rest out yourself, because there’s more. But TBH, there’s also the additional problem that Björk’s character was annoying in ways Arthur Parker, for all his foibles, never was. Von Trier is always a love or loathe director. Dancer and The Idiots were films I hated.
……I like this film, but not as much as I do “Dogville” (which I just voted on my 2000’s ballot)………